Our Brains Think They’re Amazing

<epiphany> Our wonder at the complexity of the universe does not have evidential value for creation.Such a conclusion require the presupposition that our brains are great computing machines, capable of understanding the universe, and that our lack of such understanding means a more powerful designer created everything. </epiphany>

Or maybe our brains are just not very good at performing the task we are asking them to do when we try to understand the universe at large. Concluding awe=design requires that evolutionary theory say that we should understand the universe, that the brain we developed through a long process of adaptation would have somehow acquired the ability to understand the universe at large at a deep level, and that this lack of understanding is therefore evidence for intelligent design. Evolutionary theory makes no such assertion that our brains are good for understanding the universe. Up until very recently, understanding the universe at a deep level was not an advantage for our species. Knowing how to make tools, how to identify and avoid threats and how to cooperate together in groups were all capabilities that were advantageous to the human species to develop, so these are among the things our brain is good at doing.

Evolutionary theory also does not conclude that our brains are the pinnacle of development. We are just the best general computing platform we have observed (and dolphins or other animals might have better brains limited by worse hardware). Thinking our brains are great is a natural enough conclusion, since we have never had other computing hardware to compare ourselves too. Only recently, now that we have begun to build computers with transistors on silicon substrate, have we ever had an alternative to our brains with which to compare.The results are not promising for those who believe humans are a unique creation. While we have yet to develop the software to equal our brains, anything a computer can do, it can generally do it better than our brains can. This trend should be worrying to anyone who thinks humanity can never be surpassed. Evolution will probably proceed exponentially faster once moved to a silicon substrate operating at exponentially faster speeds than organic molecules.